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Prize-winning artist Carolyn Latanision has a special affinity for rusted steel mills. Which makes sense because she grew up in Bethlehem, Pa., three blocks from one of the biggest mills.
“I come from three generations of mill workers,” she says. “It’s a very dangerous business. My great-grandfather died in an accident when my grandfather was 11 years old — and he had to support his mother and five sisters.
“The plant blew up and he was badly burned,” she continues. “He used to stick his head in the fridge and he died at 52.
“My mother was an artist and an art teacher, Dad painted smokestacks, and he died at 58 from lead poisoning [from the paint],” she says.
When walking along the Lehigh River, Latanision saw the mills which inspire her paintings.
Examples of some of the artwork by Carolyn Latanision. COURTESY PHOTOS/CAROLYN LATANISION
She met her future husband Ron on a blind date.
“He was a metallurgy intern at Penn State,” she explains. “After we married, we moved to Columbus Ohio, where I taught art at a recreation center in Columbus’s East End.”
Eventually, she went to Ohio State University to retrain as an elementary school teacher while Ron got his doctorate, which took the couple to Baltimore, Germany, and eventually to MIT.
“Once we got to Boston, I said ‘I’m never going to move again,’” she says.
Fifty-year residents of Winchester, the couple live on Nassau Drive. Because she wasn’t certified to teach in Massachusetts, Latanision raised her children and did a lot of painting.
“In 1981, I got a painting studio and taught in the evenings at the Stoneham Adult Ed program,” she says. “Many of those students have followed me to my current studio [in Cummings Park]. I took lots of photos on Beacon Hill and taught myself to paint architectural subjects.”
One of the works by Winchester artist Carolyn Latanision. COURTESY PHOTO/CAROLYN LATANISION
Latanision teaches in her studio and her method is to give students a concept, such as how to handle values while painting trees, then they take photos of “trees with character.”
She then teaches them about color mixing and values. Or they’ll each arrange a cardboard carton and fill it with unexpected objects.
Award-winning watercolor paintings. COURTESY PHOTOS/CAROLYN LATANISION
Latanision won this year’s San Francisco Watercolor Society’s Daniel Smith/Richeson Award for her painting of “Rooftops, Bethlehem Steel.”
“Nine years ago, I took fourth place and won $4,000 worth of watercolor paints,” she says. “Eventually, I won $5,000 in cash.”
She adds spends “four to five hours a day painting, or more, or whatever.”
For more information about Latanision, visit her website.
